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7 & 1/2 Acres |
2002-12-10 - 7:03 p.m. We're home now after another day outside in this cold toes weather-- first day in six that my boots stayed dry. It never got above freezing today so my feet stayed dry-- though damn, they were cold. But, I'm loving this meeting of all kinds of folks, this cutting trees and the anxiety until they go the right way. I love hollering to Frances, "Alright!" or "Go" or whatever it is I say for her to give the tree a tug with the rope tied to the Ford. Again, there's this absence in my memory--I can't remember exactly what word it is I holler but this is ok because it's a moment of an extreme amount of concentration--to get my notch just right and my back cut aligned--and not to cut too much or the hinge can break and the tree could fall any which way. And all this is ok because it's only damaged or threatening trees that we're dropping or pines full of the southern pine beetle (which will certainly have their numbers checked by this cold). We worked at an old neighbors pulling a big ole oak limb off his farmhouse (it had plunged through the roof in several places). I worked with George several years ago harvesting pines from his pasture before the beetles ate them and he'd say about cutting a tree, "you Throw it." "Throw that one this way." or the like and how nice that sounded. Like the saying from the Book of the Samarai about taking serious things lightly, light things seriously. And how, when he'd say this he'd be very serious but the word choice was what was so light. His heart's not so good anymore and he could only watch what he would of done on his own a few years back--but this wasn't a sad thing, just a matter of fact and so there was no pity. Just hot chocolate which his wife brought to warm us while we worked. Dave fed us more soup. We started with just one tree at his place but then added two more and then two more again before I finally said we'd have to get back to him another day--that we had to get to some other folks waiting. It's fun doing it this way--working a couple of hours at one site, then across the street to another, then down the street to their neighbor's then back in the truck to others. We covered six today but two of those were only bids. I also talked two folks outta topping their trees and into pruning them right or removing certain ones altogether. I'm not sure a couple of years ago I would of imagined myself as having the ability to have the kind of rapport to talk somebody out of topping their tree--and that I did it with such ease today. It's like telling somebody, "Oh, no you see, actually, mowing your grass is very bad." Boy, I'd like to be able to swing that one one day. Tomorrow it is floors. We have a mound of gymnasium maple floor in our carport that we bought salvaged along with two tractor trailer's full of heart pine. We've finally (though we never did really try-- we just talked about it) sold some of this excess and we need to prep it before delivery. It's suppose to rain tomorrow which'll make this task much more bearable as tree work will be out and this'll be in the dry. It's nice that this is coming together after our bust of a job to Illinois. After expenses and tires for the truck it's embarrassing what we made off that job. Hey, Mr. Artist Guy, let us pay to move your sculpture 1500 miles. It's on us. Frances and I have been tracking some miles lately in several counties. I love this place where we live-- at the cusp of these oldest mountains in North America. How soon, when traveling Northeast, the landscape turns into Virginia for me--not real Virginia, just what I think of as Virginia, especially along 29 and even 85. And, how where we were working today, it was Sand Hills pine (though we were still a good forty miles from the real Sand Hills). And then, at another site not 20 miles away it was Piedmont oaks and pasture. I am grateful that it's winter and that it's a bare and cold landscape. You can see further. So now it is time for Buffy.
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